


le petite encore

by tameila



Series: The Sun Always Rises 'verse [5]
Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Bathing/Washing, Established Relationship, F/M, Face-Sitting, Fluff and Smut, Oral Sex, Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot, Vaginal Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-10
Updated: 2020-03-27
Packaged: 2021-02-28 01:27:30
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,882
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22645645
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tameila/pseuds/tameila
Summary: there's just something about Scanlan, fresh off the stage after a show, that really gets Pike going.
Relationships: Scanlan Shorthalt/Pike Trickfoot
Series: The Sun Always Rises 'verse [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/670037
Comments: 20
Kudos: 93





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> my fic wife, jabletown, gently and lovingly bullied me into being brave enough to post this on ao3. and shoutout to sylvie for encouraging me too! this isn't really my wheelhouse, but i'm trying to put my foot out there.
> 
> this is TSAR 'verse but is directionless and plotless enough to be read without any former knowledge of TSAR.

“Pike, if we don’t stop now…”

Pike inhales sharply, pulling her eyes away from the lightbulbs that frame the mirror behind her to catch Scanlan’s gaze. His pupils are blown wide; nothing but desperate reverence and need framed by smudged eyeliner and a hint of glitter. It only makes the pull of him stronger. He rolls his hips in the heavy, panting silence (or maybe it was her), and the bulge of his pants catches friction on the inside of her thighs, splayed open for him as the skirt of her dress bunches higher and higher.

She whimpers, a sharp heat pulsing from her cunt. The fingers of her right hand, lost in the throes of his curls, clutch tighter as her own vision wobbles. Desperate to hold herself in the moment, her eyes drop to his lips, bruised and swollen from her demanding kisses, as they fall open and twist with the sounds of his pleasure.

 _Fuck._ He’s so much — beautiful, addictive, so fucking _hot_ — when he gets like this, all worked up and wanting. She can smell the adrenaline on him, can still taste it on her tongue from when she licked the sweat off his lips and the trembling length of his neck. The pounding of the blood in her ears is enough to drown out the sense in her and any sound of the outside world that expects them back soon.

“No,” she says and again, louder, to combat the husky scratch of her voice, “No, don’t stop, Scanlan. Please, I need you. _Now._ ”

Fumbling, fingers sore and bent from where they’ve been gripping the makeup desk under her, Pike reaches for the zipper of his pants. Scanlan’s hand joins her a moment later, and together, they push down his pants until his cock, already painfully hard and slick, is freed from its confinement.

Pike bites back a moan and wastes no time taking him into her hand. Her fingers stroke along the vein of him. The tiniest hint of her nails follow. Scanlan’s hips jerk at her touch, a strangled cry catching in his throat as his cock twitches in her grasp. After half a year of heady phonecalls and cyber sex and an adequate silicone replica, it feels so fucking good to _feel him_ again. To be the sole provider of his pleasure.

Exhaling shakily, hips rocking subconsciously in search of him, _desperate_ , Pike taps the bottom of Scanlan’s chin to catch his attention. When their eyes meet, her body gives a deep, low ache that has her hips rolling and arching. Scanlan presses forward as well. The solid heat of his cock, pushing past her lips, pushing close but not quite there to where the need for him radiates, nearly does her in.

Her head falls back against the mirror. It rattles, but her moan drowns out the worst of the sound, of any concern. “Scanlan…” Her chest heaves up with the word, and her breasts, still caught in the confines of her dress, make it a near painful press. It shouldn’t feel as good as it does.

“What do you want, love?” Scanlan’s breath is hot against her ear. His cock rubs against her clit with every forward press of his hips, and she feels hazy, feels like she’s burning from the inside out, as she loosens her own grasp to grab for his hips instead.

“You, baby, _oh,_ oh, fuck. _You._ ”

“Where?” He’s teasing her.

She can do that too.

Her feet, one planted firmly on the back of a chair and the other hooked around his waist, reaffirm their hold as she widens the spread of her thighs. She rocks forward, more pronounced this time than before, with purpose, and they both cry out as the head of his cock sinks into the wet heat of her cunt.

Scanlan becomes a mess of kisses and fragmented pants of her name against the side of her neck. And, Pike, gasping, unable to push down the triumphant grin on her lips, rocks again to pull him in further and moans, _"_ _Here."_

Scanlan does not need to be told twice. With a tender, lingering kiss to the soft spot just behind her ear, he adjusts his hold on her thighs and thrusts forward once — twice — until they’re pressed, hip to hip, and he’s seated fully within her. _Fuck._ Her eyes roll, her muscles twitch, and her hips rock involuntarily towards the long-awaited feeling of him. They hold there for a minute, swapping lopsided kisses in the bliss of connection, before Scanlan begins to move.

They don’t have time for the slow, gazing into each other’s eyes until they crest together kind of sex right now. Not here, in his dressing room, in the last minutes they have alone before his show resumes. They’ll have time at the hotel later. Time to cuddle and relearn every inch of skin and truly sink back into each other, just like she imagined Scanlan probably had planned. But, right now…

Scanlan’s hips bump against the dresser with each forward motion. The whole thing shakes under them, glass rattling and makeup products rolling, but Pike only grips the edge and pushes her shoulders back against the mirror to aid the momentum of her hips as she bounces with the rhythm he sets.

Neither of them last long.

Pike was half there already by the time he’d swiped half the dresser clean and crowded her up against it. When Scanlan adjusts his angle, hitting right where toe curls and breathless pleas meet, she unravels with a cry. Scanlan follows her not long after, pressing his forehead to hers as his thrusts slow, landing deeper and truer in the heat of her, until, with one last solid press, one that sets her head spinning, he comes undone.

Scanlan is the first to speak after. With a sloppy kiss against the corner of her mouth, he moves his hand from her hips to her face, brushing away errant strands of hair as he smiles at her. “Hey.”

Pike giggles. “Hey.” Her head feels heavy on her neck, rolling back against the glass despite her efforts to lift it. Humming gently, Scanlan slides a hand around to the back of her head, cradling it for her, and she laughs louder.

Scanlan kisses her then, a manic flurry of kisses that leaves her giddy and falling into him. “I love you, baby,” he says between one kiss and another. “Fuck. I _love_ you. I think I bruised my hips, baby, but fuck…”

and Pike laughs and falls into him until she’s slipping off the dresser and they’re falling to the ground in a tangle, snorting with laughter and — God, she doesn’t regret a damn thing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sometimes you write smut in a horny, petulant rage because you're upset about the lack of Pikelan fics and that's life, babey!!!
> 
> lemme know if this pointless smut is worth a sequel in the comments, because a girl has thoughts....


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry for the delay, here is part two of this wonderful, filthy exploration into smut of mine! I hope everyone is safe and healthy, and I hope this long, drawn out night of fluff and smut can lift your spirits some.

There’s rose petals and champagne in a fancy ice bath on the hotel bed.

Pike snorts at the sight of it; she expected nothing less. Sparing a quick glance towards the door where Scanlan is exchanging some final words with Lionel, Pike approaches the set-up with an impish prance and equally impish curl to her lips. The rose petals are real; she worries one between her fingers just to double-check but the aroma is unmistakable. The champagne is only sparkling grape juice in disguise. No surprise there — Scanlan hasn’t pretended to enjoy drinking in years, and she doesn’t have much interest in alcohol either if she’s not consuming it in the company of friends. But, Pike is drawn most to the unassuming courtesy note left by the hotel. Hidden under the wifi information and concierge hours is a simple, penned sentiment:

> _Enjoy your stay Mr. & Mrs. Trickfoot!_

Pike’s toes curl, and she presses the cardstock to her lips as if she thinks that’ll dissuade the blissful buzzing of her nerves or hide her dopey grin.

Two years, and she still feels like a newlywed.

Pike hears the click of the door and, returning the cardstock to its perch, turns expectantly. The pleasant buzz brought on by the card resurges tenfold when she sees the intent look in Scanlan’s gaze as he all but bounds across the distance between them. Where she meant to make a joke, something like “Ooh, sparkling grape juice, you sure know how to spoil a girl”, she instead throws open her arms to welcome him. Scanlan sweeps her up, swinging them in a half-circle as he finds her chin and her nose and finally her lips with a flurry of grinning, ticklish kisses. Pike squirms in his grasp even as her arms, flung around his neck, pull him closer and her lips, grinning just as wide as his, chase and return his every kiss.

Scanlan pulls away after a minute, and Pike pouts when he does. Dramatically, she will admit, with a whine and an extended bottom lip, but — Hey! She’s allowed. She’s missed him too much and too long to not feel all her emotions as dramatically and fully as she wants.

“Hey, hey, hey,” he soothes, chuckling lowly as he nuzzles back into her space until their foreheads are pressed. “I’m right here.”

Pike inhales shakily around the rush of butterflies that swoop up from her stomach and weave through her ribs. She could melt, fall limp into the warm weight of him, lose herself in the brilliance of his deep brown eyes, and she knows she would be safe in his arms. After so long, too long, he’s here.

When he leans in for a kiss, her lips part to greet the shape of his. She drags a hand through the back of his curls. She lays the other on the smiling curve of his cheek.

_He’s here._

This time, he does not pull away until she does and, even then, he stays as they were — foreheads pressed and noses nuzzling. Pike could not adore him more than she does at that moment, staring into his affection-softened eyes and seeing his joy displayed so plainly. A joy that matches so well with her own.

Their reunion backstage at the show, surrounded by friends and roadies alike, was one thing.

Their quick, fumbled affair in the dressing room another.

But now they are together — finally.

and alone — truly.

and they have all night.

Pike places a playful kiss on Scanlan’s lips before stepping away, dragging her finger under his chin and grinning when he stumbles to follow.

“Come on, love,” she says with a simper. “Let’s take a shower.”

☼ ☼ ☼

Pike sits on the bathroom counter, feet kicking lazily, as Scanlan shuffles back into the room with an armful of shower products. Though she was initially vexed when he met her very sexy and tempting offer with a hasty, “Wait, I gotta get some things”, seeing his bright smile as he arranges it all along the shower ledges leaves her smiling too. They have all night. As much as she wants to hoard every second of his attention for herself, she wants him happy more.

If she’s being honest, she could use a serious shower herself.

There’s only so much clean-up two people can do after an unplanned romp in a dressing room where stepping outside the door means returning to another wave of obligations and someone’s gonna be knocking at that door in no more than five minutes. Her skin is chilled with dried sweat. Her baby hairs curled from it. There’s a mess of, well, _everything_ between her legs that she only caught a quick trip to the bathroom to set right, and the paper, both toilet and towel, in public restrooms is hell on sex-sensitive skin.

She wants her hands on Scanlan, and his on her, but — Yeah, a good, thorough shower sounds like heaven.

Her train of thought departs as Scanlan returns to her. He kisses her cheek and her chin and the underside of her jaw. When his breath, soft and measured, washes across her skin, Pike shivers. His hand falls upon her knee. Gentle fingers wrap inwards. Pike knows damn well what he intends to do — take his time, unravel her bit by bit, and he can do that, sure, but she has other plans for him.

Curling her fingers into his shirt, Pike yanks him in tight against her, kissing and nipping at his jaw with her eager grin, before pushing the offending fabric up and over his head. The movement ruffles his already messy curls. They tumble over his brow, shading his startled expression. When he blinks at her from under them, a pout forming on his lips, Pike cannot help but laugh.

“Sorry, baby,” she soothes, dragging her hands down his chest. A pleasant, flushed pink already colors his skin. Pike’s body hums happily at the sight. “I didn’t get to enjoy this view earlier.”

“And, whose fault is that, Mrs. I-Need-You- _Now_?” Scanlan teases. From his new spot between her knees, yanked there as usual by her eagerness, Scanlan runs his hands under the shade of her dress.

Pike presses into his touch and hooks a foot around the back of his legs to invite him further. A rush of air follows the motion, breezing across the bare skin beneath her skirt and reminding her:

“Do you still have my underwear?”

She’d stuffed them into the back pocket of his pants before he went back on stage. At the time, it felt like a playfully intimate thing to do, and there was no way she was putting them back on. Cool, damp underwear on top of everything else? No thanks. But, it’s only now, with Scanlan’s fingers playing along the bare skin at the crook of her inner thigh, she realizes that she didn’t watch him during his final undressing for the night to see that he’d properly removed them. Not that it’d be the most embarrassing thing for someone on his team to find them. Some of them have, unfortunately, seen worse, but...It’d still be embarrassing.

Scanlan grins and removes a hand from beneath her dress. “But, of course!” With an overexaggerated waggle of his eyebrows, he reaches into the pocket of his sweatpants and produces them with a flourish. “I could never forget such a boon.”

Pike snorts and snatches them from his hand. “My underwear is hardly a treasure.”

“Says you,” Scanlan pouts as she drops them unceremoniously to the ground. After a beat, he adds, still staring down at them. “Are those new, by the way?”

“They are! There was one of those buy 5, get 5 deals the other week! Oh, you’re gonna _love_ this super cute pair I got. It has — ”

“No, no, don’t tell me!” Scanlan hurries to interrupt her, hands caught halfway between covering his ears and her mouth. “I wanna see them when you wear them,” he asserts, his surprise melting away into quiet consideration as his hands return to her thighs. At a slow, thoughtful meander, he says, “Let’s say...Tomorrow. You could wear them tomorrow. We can go out to breakfast. Somewhere fancy-adjacent. Enough to warrant a little dressing up on our part, and you can wear those panties.” His hands move under the shade of her dress again. Pike squirms, caught between the growing intensity in his eyes and the soft, soft, _slow_ drag of his fingertips up, up, and _inwards_. “We can talk about whatever we want, order whatever we want, and I’ll make a great show of pretending I forgot that you’re wearing them…” As his fingers reach the apex of her thighs, fingertips teasing the curls there before retreating, Scanlan leans in and whispers in a low voice, low enough that she must give his words all her attention, “...but I’ll keep my hand on your thigh, just high enough to remind you that I haven’t.”

His fingers, once gentle and barely there upon her skin, grip tight on the back of her thighs and pull her into him. Pike yips in surprise. Her hands scramble for purchase on his skin, reaching around his neck and digging into his shoulders. Scanlan’s laughter rumbles warmly through his chest. She can feel it through her own chest, pressed solidly against him. 

As she tucks her heated face against the side of his neck, feeling fuzzy and perfectly riled, Pike wonders if she should let him down now or simply ride this wave of sensuality as far as it’ll take them — hopefully to many, _many_ crests — and give him the bad news when he’s too lethargic to care.

Her mouth decides for her: “I didn’t pack them.”

“Hm?” It’s a hopeful sound. A second chance, almost.

Still — “It’s just — I wore them right before I left, is all. They were so cute, and I wanted to see if I felt myself in them as much as I thought I would, and I _did_ , but then I was too lazy to do a whole load of laundry just to have them for this trip.”

“Oh! Is the dryer still broken?”

“No, no, the de Rolos were in town visiting this week, remember? So, Vex came over with Percy and Trinket on Tuesday, and Percy fixed it up for us.”

Scanlan pulls back some, his jaw dropping. “Trinket?” His voice squeaks on the second syllable. “Please tell me you didn’t let him on the furniture! Oh, Pikey, the upholstery...It’ll smell like dog forever and, Sarenrae help us, _the fur_...”

Pike huffs, equal measures amused and fond, and gives his side a playful ribbing. “Oh, hush, you’re so dramatic,” and she means to sound at least a little bit stern but fails entirely, smiling through every word. “I promise that Trinket stayed on the floor because he’s a good boy.”

“Unlikely, but I believe you, because I love you and trust you and know, _for a fact_ , that you vacuumed all the rugs and floors properly once they left.”

It’s then, fondly watching her husband carry on about fur on the furniture and proper house cleaning, that Pike remembers that his fingers are still curled in her pubic hair and her legs are still open in a — what some might call — _vulgar_ spread around his hips, and it’s a shade of ridiculous they haven’t reached before; she laughs.

Scanlan’s brow furrows — “What?” — before his eyes widen and he sputters, “No, you wouldn’t, you couldn’t have — You just left the fur there? Pike, tell me, you didn’t!”

Pike only laughs harder, voice warbling around her assurances, “No, it’s just — Fuck, we were gonna fuck, and now we’re — I vacuumed the floor, love! I did! I even sprayed everything with that fancy-smancy fabric spray, the one that smells just a little too much like Froot Loops, and you should be proud, okay? I can’t believe I’m telling you this while your fingers are an inch away from my — ”

The more she carries on, the more outrageous Scanlan’s responding facial expression morphs from arched brows to pursed, ‘hmm’ing lips to crossed eyes until she dissolves into nothing more than snorting giggles and a flushed face. She can feel the pleasant, familiar burn in her cheeks. She loves the way it’s complemented by the sparkle in Scanlan’s eyes as, with his own pronounced snort, pig-like enough to nearly send her off the counter from laughter, Scanlan joins her.

“I love you, I love you, _I love you_ ,” Pike chants against his lips as she cradles his face in her hands in order to best pepper him with kisses. It may be the lingering giggles, bubbling up between words and against his smile, and the drop in oxygen intake because of them, but she feels giddy and content.

Scanlan is no better. He cradles her against his chest, humming into their every kiss and answering her chant with his own love-soaked sing-song: “I love you, I missed you, _I love you_.”

“I missed you, too,” Pike says quietly, intently, while her hands move down to push at his sweatpants, a quiet glee building in her chest when she realizes he’s wearing nothing underneath them, “ _so much_.”

Scanlan’s hands roam the length of her back, fingers toying with the zipper of her dress; Pike can hear the delicate _ting_ of the metal as he laughs and kisses her again then once more. “I miss our late night walks to the corner store to buy ice cream and Junior Mints,” he says and slowly drags the zipper down bit by bit.

His pants drop, and Scanlan pauses his work at her dress long enough to hop from one foot to the other as he kicks them away. Pike giggles at the sight and the subsequent bouncing of all his bits as she leans back on her hands, enjoying the view. Half a year. She’s waited and ached for him for half a year, and — Pike tilts her head as Scanlan gyrates and pops his hips for her amusement — _it was worth the wait_. “Hm, yeah, I miss the part just before that where we both come so hard that it’s like, ‘You know what, we deserve some ice cream’ — ”

“Mhm. Me too.” He leans over her, fitting his hips back against the crux of hers while his hands reach around to grasp for her zipper once more.

Pike sighs, eyelids fluttering, as she feels the gentle scrap of it across her back, lower and lower. “ — and I miss listening to you sing in the shower while I brush my teeth, and I miss coming home every night and, just, having you there...I miss the comfort and security of it, going through my day knowing you’ll be home at the end of it.”

Scanlan exhales shakily. The zipper reaches the end of its line.

With a shared, quiet smile between them, Pike sits up and slides off the counter so Scanlan can pull her dress up and over her head. For a long moment, one that neither of them rush to fill with words or actions or intention, they take each other in, eyes flickering up and down, locating familiar freckles and moles and marks and peculiars before meeting each other. And, it’s then, looking into his deep brown eyes, their complexity of color only highlighted by the harsh bathroom lighting, that Pike cannot help but notice the dark circles underneath them. Gently, she touches her fingertips to them. Scanlan leans into her touch and answers her unspoken question with simple earnesty,

“I’ve missed you so much, love. I’ve hardly been able to sleep these past nights just thinking about seeing you again. Touching you. _Being_ with you. I’ve missed it all, Pike, _everything_ and you, most of all.”

Pike nods and, framing his face in her hands, brings his lips to hers.

☼ ☼ ☼

Scanlan insists upon helping Pike wash her hair first. His slender fingers massage into her scalp until she’s humming and rocking under his touch. The water is pleasantly hot, and they sit on the floor while he rinses out the suds. Up and down, from the roots of her hair to the ends, he works out every bubble. When he’s done, he leans over her, stopping the wash of the water over her face for just a moment as he drops a smiling kiss onto her chin and her lips and the point between her brows.

Scanlan’s hair routine is far more involved, but Pike’s gone through the motions enough times to only need a few reminders here and there as she gleefully tends to the task of scrubbing and tousling his curls. When she announces that she’s done, every bubble accounted for, Scanlan shakes out his hair like he’s a shaggy dog standing in the rain. Droplets scatter and pitter-patter against the glass shower doors and tiled walls and even the ceiling. Pike shields her face with a watery sputter of laughter, and Scanlan uses the distraction to his advantage and grabs the washcloth first.

Pike pouts but does not protest and, after wetting and soaping the cloth, they stop the shower to soap up properly. Scanlan always takes his time when he washes her, sweeping over her curves like a sculptor perfecting marble. When he dips between her legs, he takes particular care despite Pike’s assurances that she’s well past any lingering sensitivity.

“I hope I wasn’t too rough,” he mumbles, and Pike blows a raspberry at him.

“Hardly. We didn’t even crack the glass this time!”

Scanlan laughs. “A blessing, for sure.”

“You’re also not the one in this relationship that’s accidentally given the other a concussion during sex, so I really don’t think _you_ need to worry about being too rough,” Pike states, biting back a laugh in her attempt to hold a matter-of-fact tone.

Scanlan snorts. “You turned so red when the ER nurse asked us what happened. I thought you were gonna pass out too."”

“I knew her from high school! There was no way I was gonna be like, ‘Oh, yeah, I was fucking my husband so hard that he banged his head into the headboard and passed out’!”

“I still think my explanation of ‘sexident’ was particularly clever.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Pike says, teasingly dismissive, “Now, how about you get on your knees and wash my feet, hm, clever man?”

“Oh…” Scanlan waggles his eyebrows and drops to his knees. “Yes, ma’am!”

Scanlan washes her thighs and her calves then each foot in turn, minding the heel. When he moves back upwards, over the curve of her ass and onto her lower back, he does not linger any longer than she would while washing herself. Time has moved beyond her by this point, as time often does when Scanlan tends to her so diligently, but Pike cannot help but smile at his restraint.

For Scanlan, it’s all about the journey when it comes to sex and intimacy. He would touch her for hours, if she’d let him. Soft fingertips. Firm palms. A brush of lips that don’t linger. A hint of his teeth when she inevitably tells him to get his ass moving and usually just to tease her. He knows how to build the tension from sparks to wild licks of flame like he’s a ranger minding a controlled burn, like he knows damn well what he’s doing (and he _does_ ), until he just...lets her go, lets the wildfire rage and he jumps right in after her.

Pike wishes she were half as patient as him.

But, patience has never been her best virtue, not when she wants it so damn much, especially not when it comes to sex.

When Scanlan finally passes the washcloth to her, Pike does her best to mirror his slow, attentive strokes. She washes his chest. A faint pink blush still remains, running down into his happy trail, and Pike’s resolve wavers. Breathing deep, she moves over the relaxed slouch of his shoulders and then makes her way down to his hips.

Without Scanlan’s attention to distract her, Pike becomes increasingly aware of the silence around them. Water drips from the showerhead. The bathroom fan whirls. Scanlan hums when she touches him, his eyes half-lidded and his smile peaceful, and it’s really not fair. She wishes she were half as patient as him, but…

Pike makes a second pass over his chest with the washcloth before finding his heartbeat and laying a kiss above its steady pulse. Scanlan gasps. Under her smile, his heart gives a pleasant thump. Suds cling and tingle upon her lips when she pulls away, but Pike couldn’t care less. Scanlan watches her with a renewed intensity — half fond, half more.

While Scanlan maintained a sensible distance between them while he washed her, Pike steps right up against him, wrapping her arms around him as she sweeps the washcloth down his back and over his ass. She grabs a good handful when she does, because she may wish she were half as patient as Scanlan, but she isn’t, so she will get her due feel — Thank you very much!

When Scanlan yelps in surprise, Pike stifles her laughter against his soapy shoulder.

“Not to accuse you of foul play, babe, but I’m starting to doubt whether you ever had intentions of washing me.”

“Hm.” Pike nips at his skin. “Whatever makes you say that?” Carefully, she sneaks the washcloth between their bodies and cups his cock in her hand. Scanlan hisses through his teeth, his hips rocking into her touch, and Pike grins. He’s half-hard already just from a couple strokes. “Seems to me that I’m not the only one raring for some fun.”

Scanlan whines and squeezes his eyes shut. “Pike…”

Pike giggles but relents with a gentle, “Okay, okay, okay!”

As much as her hand itches to work him to completion, Scanlan will insist upon immediately returning the favor in one way or another, and shower sex has rarely gone the way they’ve wanted. It’s never failed, per say, but they’ve had enough experiences with slippery floors and wet skin and bumped heads. She would hate to spend their first night together in the ER — even if there’s little to no chance of knowing any nurses at the nearby facilities.

With a sigh and a step back, Pike resumes her washing, taking care to politely hide the mischievous curl that builds on the corner of her lips. It has nothing to do with Scanlan’s very deliberate breathing exercises! The ones that he’s doing because she got him a little too worked up, and now he’s trying very hard not to think sexy things while she’s on her knees in front of him. That’s absolutely not why she’s smiling! And, if she places a kiss on his hip bone as she rises and flutters her eyelashes at him while reaching to turn on the water, then it is all coincidental and certainly not a ploy to coax him into kissing her.

But, if he does kiss her, which he does as the water rains over them once more, then, well... 

What a wonderful coincidence!

☼ ☼ ☼

The hotel-provided robes are fluffy, warm, and perfect for post-shower snuggles. They swap turns with the blow dryer with Scanlan, as always, offering his help. He even lets her use some of his sweet-smelling curl perfecting spray — the one she can never justify the price of buying for her own wild waves of hair. Not for the first time, as Scanlan works the brush through her hair, his humming just barely audible over the blast of the blow dryer, Pike smiles at the thought of their future children. They’re doomed to fizz and high maintenance routines.

“What’s that sweet, little smile about, honey?” Scanlan asks as he sets the blow dryer aside.

Pike tilts her head back to look at him, smiling wider. “Our future babies and their curly hair. Thank Sarenrae, their father will know how to help them.” Scanlan’s playfully inquisitive expression softens, his expression almost shy as he leans down to kiss her forehead.

“Why don’t you go get our bed all nested?” He says gently against her skin, bopping her nose as he pulls away. “I’ll join you in a minute.”

Pike makes no protest at being dismissed. Scanlan’s beautifying routine requires at least three more products than hers and, what Pike can only call, a furious whisking of his hair with his special hairbrush. So, she contents herself to ready their snuggle nest upon the bed, gathering pillows and situating the blankets just right, all while sneaking glances at him through the open bathroom door. 

When he finally emerges some ten minutes later, hair fluffy and face properly moisturized, Scanlan gleefully bounds onto the bed and tumbles right into her open arms.

“Don’t kiss my face. I got lotion on,” he says, but Pike catches the last of his warning against her lips as she lands a lopsided kiss upon his mouth. It’s enough, it seems, to make his concerns forgettable as he shifts and lays the weight of his body fully against hers, returning the kiss with an eagerness that leaves her breathless.

“I missed you,” she whispers when they pull apart, briefly, just to catch their breath. She knows he knows. She knows she’s said it more than enough times tonight, but she can feel the cooling wetness on her face where his lotion rubbed off on her and smell his cologne, the same one that he has at home, the one she sprays on his pillow when she misses him, and it’s all she can think to say.

Scanlan smiles, a small and earnest thing, and whispers back, “I missed you too.”

They lay for a while after that, nose-to-nose, bodies intertwining, swapping little kisses each time the whim hits them as they speak in soft, low voices about nothing and everything.

Scanlan regales her with the story of how they sent out Lionel with a body double to distract the paparazzi at the airport before their flight into Emon, and none of them realized that he was never collected until _after_ the plane had taken off. He’d told her the story once before, on the phone yesterday, but she does not interrupt him, just as happy to hear it again as she was the first time.

In turn, she tells him about her most recent community engagement project: her and a handful of other volunteers from the temple visited the pediatric ward at the hospital. They read stories, performed puppet shows, and sang songs. One child, who’d been immobile and unable to attend the group session, even requested an improvised story in place of a storybook which, with the help of Kris to supplement sound effects, Pike had performed with great pizzazz.

“What was the story about?” Scanlan asks, his even expression turning a smidgen sly as he adds, “A love story, perhaps. About the unbreakable connection between an angelic cleric and her super handsome, immeasurably suave popstar husband. Singing songs together across the distances that separate them, making them — in some small way — never truly apart.”

Pike snorts with laughter at his wistful tone. “Babe. My audience was a 10-year-old girl. As a former 10-year-old girl myself, I knew _exactly_ what she wanted to hear about: A dragon that was also a witch disguised as an evil queen.”

“Oh.”

“You were in the story, though.”

“Oh?”

“Yes, as a valiant bard that sang of the dragon witch queen’s heroic deeds while she lounged atop her hoard of chocolate gold coins.”

Scanlan nods thoughtfully. “Hm. Mhm. I would do that.” After a moment, he offers her a gentle smile and moves a stray lock hair behind her ear. She’d felt it tickling at the corner of her eye for a couple minutes now but was far too lethargic and comfortable to bother moving it. She mouths a quick ‘thank you’, and Scanlan’s smile widens. “I’m glad it went well, love. _Truly_. You’ve been putting your everything into these events. I can’t wait until I’m home so I can be there with you. Is the next one coming up soon?”

“Two weeks from Sunday. It’s Vegas night at the community center,” Pike answers, and they share a laugh when she adds, “Wilhand’s suggestion.”

Back in the days before her time as Head Cleric, when her grandfather still led the temple, these volunteer efforts in the community were a near weekly occurrence. Nights at the local homeless shelter, afternoons at the animal shelter, weekends at the retirement home — Wilhand spearheaded all these efforts with relentless joy as only a man so overflowing with love and kindness like him could. Pike grew up in the heart of the community, helping and nurturing it at her grandfather’s side, and she wants that for her own children, for herself and her parish. It’d weighed on her for years that these efforts fell to the wayside while she adjusted to her new role.

“Oh! Did the community center approve our request to host my music lessons there?” Scanlan asks, eyes bright above his wide grin.

When Pike nods, Scanlan whoops in excitement, a display so genuine and childlike in its enthusiasm that Pike cannot help the bundle of fond, gentle affection that flares in her chest. Her efforts these past months to renew the temple’s volunteering projects are a big reason why they were unable to see each other for so long. Hard to take flights out to see his shows every other week when every other week she was at the homeless shelter or in the forest preserve or hosting a charity drive for the food bank. And, it’s one thing to hear Scanlan reassure her time and time again over the phone that he supports her, but seeing his excitement in person, being reminded that he not only supports her ideas but has his own ideas for their community when he comes home...It’s, well...

Pike nuzzles under his chin, fingers curling into the lapels of his robe.

“What? Why are you getting shy, love?” Scanlan laughs and hugs her closer to him.

“I’m not,” Pike mumbles into his chest. Scanlan’s ensuing laughter is a pleasant rumble against her cheek, and she wiggles up to be face-to-face with him. “I’m just...happy….and I love you.”

Scanlan does not hesitate, eager in his earnesty: “I love you too.”

“Always?” Pike prompts teasingly.

Scanlan kisses her, gentle and slow, folding his answer into a breath between one press and the next, “Always,” and everything after that becomes an afterthought — the room around them, the world beyond it, time. What matter is any of it when they’re together? When they’re finally, _finally_ together?

Scanlan slips a hand beneath her robe, and Pike gasps against his lips when his fingertips tease the underside of her breasts, just a passing brush, a wandering breeze of sensation. Carding her fingers through his curls, Pike grips and digs and holds him against her, swallowing his own shaky breaths as the need in her body spikes, a kaleidoscope of butterflies taking flight all at once.

_Fuck._

A couple more kisses, deeper, more urgent, brings no end to his teasing, so Pike pulls away to take the matter into her own hands. She pushes the robe away from Scanlan’s shoulders, letting her own hang loose and open, half-forgotten. Still chasing her lips, still smiling each time he catches another kiss, Scanlan rises from the bed long enough to shrug the fabric off completely before Pike moves him back against the pillows. Scanlan goes without complaint, lips parted and waiting for the return of hers, eyes dark and watchful.

Laid back against his discarded robe, naked and bared for her appreciation, Pike cannot help but savor the way Scanlan’s brown skin stands out so nicely against the white. Her beautiful man. _Hers._

Humming, happy, Pike smiles and runs a finger down his chest, from the dip of his clavicle to the start of his happy trail.

A blush blooms in her wake.

The more she admires it, the more it spreads and darkens.

When she dips her head to kiss along it, however, pressing her lips above his heart, Scanlan catches her by the shoulders of her robe before she can descend further. It is a gentle touch, a pinch of the fabric, but Pike understands the unvoiced request. She huffs, giving his chest one last kiss before she moves to allow him the pleasure.

Scanlan gives her a quick, grateful kiss in return before, with measured focus, he dips his fingers beneath her robe and pushes it slowly up and off her shoulders. Not to let gravity do as it will, of course. Scanlan never undresses her with haste. Slowly, far too damn slowly, he guides the robe down her arms. A spark of hunger gleams in his eyes as it falls away from her breasts. A slight twitch passes through his lap beneath her, but Scanlan’s control never wavers. The robe pools around her hands, but before she can move to be rid of it, he stills her with his touch. Calloused fingertips retrace their steps up and over her shoulders, down the front of her chest and — He stops just before her nipples, teasing along the areolas of each.

Her body shivers as if taken by a fever. 

“Scanlan, _please_ …”

She arches into his touch, a touch which cruelly pulls away, and Scanlan’s focused expression breaks under the weight of his grin.

“Sorry, baby,” he soothes before, with a puckish twist of his lips, he adds, “I didn’t get to enjoy this view earlier.”

Before she can reply and give him an earful for using her own words against her, Scanlan leans forward and kisses down her left breast. Small, short pecks at first until his mouth opens around her pebbling nipple. He lavishes it with flicks and circles of his tongue until she’s breathless. Instinctually, her thighs tense and seek each other, wanting to harbour and savor the burst of want between them, but she only succeeds in squeezing his lap tighter against hers.

_Oh._

His cock, already hard, already slick with her arousal, rocks between the lips of her vulva. The friction it provides for her clit with each subtle motion of her hips is — 

_Fuck._

When Scanlan moves to her right breast, panting and grinning wolfishy in the space between, Pike grabs for his curls. They tickle at her chin. They are so tauntingly close at hand. The robe, still pooled around her hands, ends the motion short.

“Shit. Are you kiddin — Grr!” Pike’s impatient grumbling turns into muttered curses which turn into a clumsy squirm until the damned thing falls aside. When she returns her attention to Scanlan, it is to find him watching her. Affection dances in his deep brown eyes and at the corners of his upturned lips and in his slender, gentle fingers that play up her spine.

“I adore you,” he whispers, not to be quiet but to be gentle, to let the words be second to the trembling, earnest weight of his voice.

Pike kisses him. She must. The very soul of her demands it. She weaves her fingers into his curls and kisses him until the movement of their bodies becomes second nature, second priority, to the shared smiles and shared looks caught between each heavy, panting pause that only makes the urge to return to the other’s lips that much stronger.

She could have kissed him for hours — and maybe she did — but, steadily, building with each whimper and moan from his pretty lips, the need for him to satisfy the ache deep within her core becomes unbearable. She rocks her hips — a firmer, more substantial motion than the one she’d kept up as they kissed — and hums appreciatively as he sinks further into the wet heat between her legs. _There_ , her body seems to purr. _Right there_.

Underneath her, Scanlan curses, his whole body seizing as his hands, once wandering all over her skin, return to their place upon her hips to aid her movements.

With her fingers still lost in his curls, Pike pulls him in for another kiss. It’s quick and messy as her rocking intensifies to a near, frantic bounce that has them both a hair too wired to control the noises punched from their throats.

“How’s that feel, love?” Pike teases, the words tumbling out after a number of failed attempts.

“How’s it feel?” Scanlan laughs, a breathy huff that betrays his pleasure. “I’ve been fucking my fist for half a year, love. This,” and he pauses to grab at her ass, holding her snugly against his lap as he rolls his hips, once, twice, until her arms are trembling and she’s gasping against his cheek, “This, ah — _fuck_ , is...Hah, this is Heaven.”

“Then, come on — baby, _oh_...Scanlan, I’m ready,” and as if to illustrate her point, Pike reaches a trembling hand between the wet, slick mess that has become of their laps and strokes at her clit and, consequently, the hard line of him pressed so sweetly against it. With a harsh exhale, she insists, “ _Fuck me._ ”

Scanlan’s head falls back against the pillows. “Pike…” His gaze rolls skywards as if searching for the last thread of control he can find as he fumbles out over hitching breaths and caught moans, “I wanna, _please_ , can I —” The fingers of his hand still gripped firmly on her ass push and suggest her upwards. Towards his face, Pike realizes quickly enough, as she watches the way his tongue swipes across his lips, flicking suggestively when he notices her looking. “Lemme take care of you first.”

Pike whines, reluctant to leave her perch upon his lap, but still — She cannot resist. After a fumbling, quick grab for more pillows to ease any discomfort on Scanlan’s part, she climbs up to straddle his face. With one hand gripping the headboard and the other running through his curls, Pike watches with trembling excitement as Scanlan kisses and laps at her inner thighs where a thin layer of her wetness has already gathered thanks to their earlier grinding. He’s the image of perfect contentment as he works: his eyes half-lidded and the hint of a smile ever present on his lips. When he adds a hint of teeth, not hard enough to leave a mark but certainly enough to suggest at one in the moment, Pike feels half-liable to tip over the edge right then and there.

_Fuck._

How many nights without him has this been her fantasy as she stroked herself to completion? Her husband, between her legs, losing himself to the taste of her, the feel of her skin, to her pleasure. Her fingers, clumsier than his, were a poor substitute for his own and there is no toy that satisfies quite like his tongue does, but the thought of him was enough to have her crying out for him on those nights, fingers curled deep where she imagined his and his name echoing through the empty rooms of their apartment where she wanted him to be.

The remembrance has her gripping tighter at his head, pulling him in to where her need demands, and Scanlan goes happily. He nuzzles up between her pussy lips, parting her with a hard, steady swipe of his tongue that lingers and flicks against her clit. Pike’s response is immediate and faintly embarrassing — if she were in the mind to care — as her legs spread further and her hips rock heedlessly into the sensation. She would worry more about suffocating him one of these days if Scanlan did not always respond so favorably when she got greedy for his attention, licking and sucking hungrily at her as if offered a generous feast.

But, luckily for his lungs, after so much build-up, his tongue barely has the chance to do more than swirl about her entrance and suggest the mere idea of penetration before she’s tumbling over the edge into white-flamed bliss. Scanlan's hands, a grounding presence against her burning skin, hold her steady as his tongue works in slow, soft strokes until the height of her sensitivity passes.

As Pike loosens completely into his hands, Scanlan helps her demount from his face. It's a clumsy affair. He's not quite strong enough to lift the dead weight of her, and she knocks him in the nose with her knee. He laughs though, so she does too and falls into the bed beside him feeling not unlike a soft, wet noodle — but a happy one, a satisfied noodle. When Scanlan rolls over to spoon her, she presses her face into his gentle, waiting hands. Her giggles become hums and then breathy sighs as his fingers card through her hair and his lips lavish praises, tender and filthy, against the hollow of her neck and the corner of her parted lips. Pike demands more, pushing his lips open so she can taste herself on his tongue. The years have not lessened the thrill of it nor dampened the arousal it sparks in her core.

With singular purpose, despite the lingering heaviness in her limbs, she pulls Scanlan on top of her. He crashes against her chest with an _oof_ and, not long after, a kittenish _ooh_ , his head nuzzling between her breasts and scattering kisses.

Pike laughs.

As much as she meant to get on with it, as much as her body still aches for it, she melts against the sheets with loose-limbed bliss and caresses his back. Up and down. Down then up. Every now and then, when his lips find a good spot, the kind of spot that curls her toes and makes her brow scrunch, she encourages him with featherlight pressure, and he stays to play there with lips and teeth and tongue.

She hopes she’ll find a mark or two in the morning. A reminder of him to take home with her. Something to touch and touch herself to when she’s alone again. _Hm_.

On his back, Pike’s fingers slow to a stop.

Under him, her knees lift and spread further around him.

“Come on, love,” she whispers and, pressed as they are chest-to-chest, she can feel the jump and race of his heart. “I want you inside of me. Do you want that too?”

Scanlan’s response is comically fast: “Yes!”

Fumbling up, an endearing determination gleaming in his eyes, he braces his hands on either side of her and wiggles his hips to rest against hers. The movement nuzzles his cock home between her wet, aching folds, and if she weren’t still so sensitive and desperate for him to get his ass in gear, Pike might have laughed at the barely contained squeak of pleasure that escapes his parted lips.

Shakily, moving his hips in tiny, controlled circles, Scanlan pants out, “Is this position okay?”

Around her own hitching breath, Pike answers, “Yes,” and Scanlan leans in to kiss her at the word.

He tucks her legs around the back of his thighs and asks again, “Is this okay?”

“ _Yes_ ,” and this time, when Scanlan leans in to kiss her, Pike curls a hand around the nape of his neck and holds him there.

Slow, drawn kisses become short, shared breaths as Scanlan adjusts and, with one last mumble of praise against her lips, sinks the first inch of his cock into her soft, waiting pussy. The initial stretch is always the sweetest, a flutter of sensation that tingles in her fingertips and her flushed cheeks and the muscles of her thighs as he drives them apart with impassioned purpose. Her lingering sensitivity does wonders to heighten the sensation as well, especially with Scanlan moving so damn slowly, and there’s little Pike can do to still the tremble of her breath or the pleasured squeeze of her muscles around him as his cock sinks deeper, bit by bit.

“Yes!” She whines, high-pitched and needy, nails catching on his back and the curve of his ass, “Scanlan, yes…”

“I got you, baby,” Scanlan whispers back, with more breath than voice, but that does not keep him from spilling his heart, “You feel so fucking good around me, so warm and soft. F — Fuck... _Pike_ , I’ve missed you. My sunshine. _Hm_. My blue skies. My Everything...and you, _ah_ , really missed me too, huh?” His lips leave sloppy kisses on the underside of her chin and the corner of her whimpering lips. “You’re soaked for me.”

Pike hisses through her teeth as he moves in another inch. _So close_. Heat burns under her skin, pulsing deep within her cunt, like a wildfire that’s one branch snap away from out of control, and he’s so close, so very nearly but not quite sheathed within her. “Scanlan, please, don’t tease me. It’s been too long. I — ”

One steady roll of his hips and Scanlan does as she pleads, finally hilting the hard length of his cock within her, their hips coming to meet in perfect harmony. Sensations, bright and whirling, powerful and weakening, burst through her body. Whatever she had to say matters little to her now, and she lets the words fall away from her tongue as she seeks him in the thick of her rapture.

Their foreheads knock and roll together.

Their eyes meet.

Scanlan’s pupils are blown wide, the deep brown of his irises overtaken but, even so, he watches her with an affection that burns in her nearly as hot as the passion of their rolling bodies. She cannot look away from him. Even as their movements grow headier and they both lose control of their sounds, Pike holds to him and the words she knows he feels too:

“I love you, I missed you, _I love you_.”

It lasts a long time.

They had their dressing room romp, passionate and fast, and their evening of play, an ode to the intimacies they'd missed. Now is this — a slow give-and-take, a rolling of hips in tandem, a need to be as close as their bodies will allow.

When they come undone, their hairlines damp with sweat and voices raw and husky, they come undone together. Their bodies nearly tangled into one. Every tension and worry eases, as they collapse into the other's arms. And, in the afterglow, they lay, safe and cradled, stroking fingertips across sensitive skin and whispering words against giddy, giggling lips,

“I love you, I missed you, _I love you_.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **3/28 - tweaked the ending just a bit because I couldn't shake the feeling that it needed just a little extra oomph ;)


End file.
